


Let's Talk.

by QueenMae_theGay



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenMae_theGay/pseuds/QueenMae_theGay
Summary: This one is less an actual storyline and more my personal opinions/issues with the characters and how the fandom tends to fixate on certain aspects of them.





	Let's Talk.

Let’s talk. If you have a moment, let’s talk about the things we brush over. 

Let’s talk about Hunk.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who loved his family as much as Lance, but never once complained about having to leave Earth behind.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who was as brilliant as Pidge, as loving as Lance, as selfless as Allura and as brave as any of them, but who became to butt of every joke - the heart of the team.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who let that happen because he knew they needed a heart.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who never liked to fly. Who threw up in the gearbox and turned green in the Blue Lion, and who stayed in Galaxy Garrison anyway, because he loved what he did.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who was one of the best engineers at the Garrison - who learned Altean and alien techs almost faster than Pidge.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who never failed to put himself in the line of fire to protect his friends, who built a new family in space when he needed it most.  
Let’s talk about the Hunk who missed his family, who missed everything he had ever known, and stayed happy and cheerful because he knew Lance needed his support - because even though he needed love, he knew others needed his support more.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who learned to cook because he loved the way it brought people together because he wanted to heal people as well as he could fix a broken part of an engine. A Hunk who was never the fastest kid or the strongest kid, but was everyone’s favorite anyway, because he cared so much.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who was thrown into a war that wasn’t his, who never wanted to fight or fly, and who learned how to do both, because he knew that if he didn’t, no one else would.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who hated the idea of hurting a fly, who would trap spiders and run them outside before his mother or his aunts could squish it.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who hated violence, so much that it nearly made him sick, a Hunk who was forced to injure and kill to survive, whose bayard was only ever a gun because he could not, would not, be able to stand it if he was any closer.  
Let’s talk about a Hunk who wakes up in the middle of the night, convinced the shadows on his walls are soldiers, coming to take him away for killing their own. Who, no matter what planet he’s on or how much he cooks, cannot feel like he has ever washed all the suffering and violence and blood from his hands. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Pidge.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who lost the two people she loved most in the world - because she loved her mother, she really did, but she idolized her brother and adored her dad.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who broke into the Galaxy Garrison, who taught herself to hack and code and to get the answers she needed, because no one was willing to stand up for her.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who wore glasses she didn’t need to remember a brother she thought she had lost.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who lost two brothers - because Shiro was Matt’s friend, and she lost him too.  
Or about a Pidge who didn’t know what to feel besides angry, because they had been taken from her, and she didn’t deserve that.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge fiercely protective of her own, who was never taken seriously, because she was a girl, because she was young, because she should know better than to have such an overactive imagination.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who hated, absolutely hated, seeing Iverson every day, nodding and respecting the same men and women who had sent her father to his death and wouldn’t give her answers. Who taught herself to shoot long before she would have needed to, simply for a release. Who would have gone to any lengths - regardless of who she had to hurt - to find her family.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who isn’t a perfect nerd, a Pidge who loved something besides math and science. Maybe a Pidge who used to look at the stars and tell her father the stories about the constellations behind them, while he told her the math he could use to bring them to her.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who can’t look up at the stars and dream anymore, because all they brought her was pain and loss and a war she can’t escape, no matter how long it’s been over.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who only went to space for one reason - to find her family. A Pidge who was selfish, who knew what she wanted and resented the rest. Who never wanted to take a life, no matter who it belonged to, but was willing to if it meant her family was safe.  
Let’s talk about a Pidge who found a whole slew of brothers she loves with all her heart - and who lost the only sister she ever had.  
Let’s talk about a girl named Katie Holt, who wakes up in the middle of the night with four words ringing through her head. A girl who can’t stay curious and fearless because she was only fearless before she knew what was really out there. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Keith.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who was always alone, who built a crippling fear of rejection. A Keith who wasn’t mean or standoffish, just afraid. Who covered that with layers of sarcasm and attitude.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who had only really started to trust the Shiro wouldn’t leave him, too, a year or two ago, who had his brother ripped away from him.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who was looking for answers, who got kicked out because he couldn’t find them in the order and discipline that had made Shiro and Matt thrive. A Keith who looked up to not one but three older brothers - Shiro, Matt, and Adam, who lost all three when Shiro disappeared, when Matt died with him, and when Adam, kind, wise Adam, was so lost in his own grief that Keith disappeared too.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who wasn’t a skeptic. Who never got along with Pidge because she wanted so badly to be the scientist her father was.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who watched the stars, but because he loved their stories, not their science. Who could agree with Pidge only on that. Who went to the desert because he had a feeling, who followed energies and blindly trusted in a magical space robot, simply because it felt right.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who wasn’t an impulsive, who simply trusted his gut. A Keith who, when suddenly surrounded by friends, didn’t know what to do or how to respond.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who withdrew because he didn’t want to be hurt again. Who left, so he couldn’t fall any more for the sharpshooter who was always by his side.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who learned from his mistakes, who cared so deeply and had no idea how to express it. Who was just as heartbroken as Pidge and Hunk and Shiro when they lost Allura, but didn’t know how to say it.  
Let’s talk about a Keith who made it his mission to save everyone, to completely rid the universe of every last whisper of the Galra empire, because he couldn’t face the fact that victory had come at the price of Allura’s life. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Shiro.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who fell in love with his best friend. Who loved Adam with everything he had, and who hated watching his heart break.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro whose only thought returning to Earth was that he’d get to see Adam again, who doubled over crying when he found out. Who missed the love of his life by days - by hours - after being apart for years.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t come back from Kerberos. Who went anyway because he loved what he did, because he wanted to fly, to be known.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who was written into a narrative as a hero - a narrative Lance idolized, a narrative he lived up to - but who started as a good man who wanted his name in the history books.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who lived through intense trauma, who gets phantom limb pains and who can’t sleep at night.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who never wanted to fly anything again after Voltron, who wound up Captain of the Atlas, and who did it with pride.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who would never captain anything again, who always asked Curtis or Keith or Pidge to fly if they were together, who would rather hire a pilot than fly himself anywhere, no matter the ship. Too many things had gone wrong too many times while he was in charge to ever feel comfortable flying.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who was young, too young to deal with anything he went through, who bore it anyway because they were younger, and someone had to watch over them all. Or about a Shiro who loves his white hair, and who wears it as a mark of what he survived - but can’t stand to look at his arm in a mirror.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who watched his equals leave him. First in his friend Matt, who was never quite the same. Then in Adam, in Allura. A Shiro who married Curtis, who loves him, but sometimes, sitting at that round table on Altea, knows somewhere deep in his heart that Curtis will never really understand what happened to him.  
Let’s talk about a Shiro who never let himself be broken because there was always someone he could help. And about a Shiro who doesn’t know how to be whole anymore. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Lance.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who wanted attention, who wanted fame. Who joined the Galaxy Garrison because he wanted to be the next Shiro, to have everyone on Earth know his name.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who discovered that he loved flying, more than anything else in the world, and who tried so hard to become the best at it, even when he crashed simulator after simulator.  
Let’s talk about a Lance whose lady-killer attitude was always a mask, who was insecure and lost, even when he was still on Earth.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who touched the shield on the Blue lion and felt seen for the first time in his life. Who realized that this, whatever it was, was more important than anything he had thought he wanted up until this point.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who had always watched the stars, who knew all the names of flowers and lived for warm summer rains. Let’s talk about a Lance who always loved the quieter beauties to life, and never knew how to say that. So he opted for the loudest, brashest expressions he could find.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who sat in Blue’s chair for the first time and felt that, what all those tiny beautiful moments he saw made him feel, magnified, saw a universe of tiny beautiful somethings.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who took photos of everything he saw, not out of vanity, but so he would have proof when he went home, because he would go home.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who had to teach himself how to fight, how to shoot, and how to fly, who was never the best at any of it, but forced himself to learn.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who wanted to be an artist, who missed his pencils and graphites and paints almost as much as the people he left behind.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who lost that part of himself. Who couldn’t make himself put so much as a pen on a sheet of paper without seeing the bodies of soldiers he had left behind, who would never paint again.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who woke up screaming from nightmares he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, ever recall, who dared to fall in love, only to have Allura taken from him.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who survived, and spent a year wishing he hadn’t. Who found solace in the solitude and routine he had once hated so much. Who chose a quiet life because it was the only kind of life he could stand.  
Let’s talk about a Lance whose name and face became household knowledge in every home in the universe, and about a Lance who hated that fact more than anything. Because she should have been here to see it, because it should have been him who went.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who lost all of his tiny beautiful moments, who can’t sleep and has to force himself to not panic when his bayard isn’t at his hip.  
Let’s talk about a Lance who can’t stand to look at the stars anymore. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about five kids who never should have gone to war, five kids who were scarred and broken by battles they never wanted to fight. Let’s talk about five dreamers and wishers and normal teenagers who can’t ever look at the stars again. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Shay.  
Let’s talk about a Shay who lived in a world of purples - the Galra, their soldiers, their weapons. Who lived in a world of darkness, trapped underground.  
Let’s talk about a Shay who never felt like that was right, who spoke to the Balmera more than she was supposed to, who snuck above late at night to watch the stars.  
Let’s talk about a Shay who found light, who found Yellow, and watched the purple that had filled every day of her life with fear just melt away.  
Let’s talk about a Shay who couldn’t understand why her family wouldn’t want to leave or to fight, who couldn’t comprehend why they wouldn’t want to help others like them. Who, even though she knew none of the others had helped them, still helped Hunk in every way she could.  
Let’s talk about Shay, because we don’t give her enough credit for accepting that the world that she had always known was wrong, and finding ways to change that. 

Let’s talk. 

Let’s talk about Romelle. Let’s talk about Coran, about Allura. 

Let’s talk about how they deserved better, how they were betrayed and hurt and lost the only home they ever loved. Let’s talk about Altea, and all of its people. Or about the Galra, and how they, as a race and a nation, were betrayed by a leader they trusted. 

Let’s talk about the victims of war, the planets who won’t be able to recover. The people - alien and human - who died for freedom. 

Let’s talk about Matt Holt, about Colleen, about Hunk’s family, about Lance’s parents, about Veronica. 

Let’s talk about the MFEs, another group of kids who went to war. 

Let’s talk about them all, and let’s remember. That they’re fictional. They’re characters and plot lines and animation. 

But they’re also reminders. Of what happens when dictators are ignored. Of what hate can do to people. Of who is hurt the most, about the impacts of war, the power of justice. And of the importance of equality, of representation and revolution. 

So yeah. Let’s talk.


End file.
